A weekend topic starting with Forbes on New York. "A glut of continues to plague property owners, who are beginning to relist apartments they had held off the market due to low prices. In the short term, and in select areas, that still presents renters with the upper hand. 'With over 20,000 listings available across the 5 boroughs, renters still have a lot of bargaining power,' says Allia Mohamed, CEO of openigloo."

"Elliman’s latest report shows that, in Manhattan, the biggest discounts can be found on studios and one-bedroom apartments, where median rents are down 14.8% and 11%, respectively. Queens remains heavily discounted across the board, with median prices down between 12.9% and 22.9%, depending on the apartment size."

The Des Moines Register in Iowa. "The fate of a proposed high-rise at 515 Walnut St. in downtown Des Moines is in question as its developer, Blackbird Investments, faces several lawsuits for failing to pay its loans on other high-profile projects in Iowa's capital and across the state. Several publicly announced deadlines for the $100 million project have come and gone without progress. It's one of two proposed skyscrapers that would be the first built in the city in nearly two decades."

"The future of the other tower, known as The Fifth, also is unclear. Its developer, Mandelbaum Properties, is embroiled in a complex legal battle with the city over which is to blame for a loan default and foreclosure, and the remaining undeveloped land on the prime tract remains in limbo.
Des Moines-based Blackbird Investments plans a 33-story apartment tower at 515 Walnut St."

"'We mutually parted ways over the project's ambitions not aligning directly with what we would consider reality,' J.J. Smith of CA Ventures told the Register at the time. 'I have the highest regard for the Blackbird team and can appreciate their visions for the project, but we at CA have to pick projects that stand the greatest chance at success, and for us, this wasn't one of them.'"

From Bisnow Washington DC. "Activity has brought new demand for D.C. hotels that have survived a nightmare year, but hotel owners say it isn't enough. Hotel occupancy in the District averaged 35.7% for the week ending May 16, according to STR data shared with Bisnow by Destination D.C. The District's total hotel revenue that week was down 75% from the same period in 2019, according to the STR data. Occupancy at the W Hotel was about 35% the week after Memorial Day, General Manager Meade Atkeson said. 'Very few hotels are making money right now,' Atkeson said."

The Hartford Courant in Connecticut. "A development partnership has purchased the former Red Lion Hotel in downtown Hartford — its upper floors already converted to apartments — with plans to convert the rest of the 18-story building overlooking Dunkin’ Donuts Park into residential rentals. The new owners say they intend to put the project’s troubled past behind them. A previous developer that started on the conversion ran into heavy cost overruns, stalling the project for two years. DW Commercial of New York, the lender, took over the project, completed the conversion of the top nine floors and pursued a foreclosure."

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report in Louisiana. "Though businesses have reopened and are operating at full capacity, there are still several question marks about what the second half of 2021 will look like in the multifamily sector. That’s in part because of the market’s employment picture. The Baton Rouge metro area lost 20,700 jobs in 2020 and unemployment remains high, despite demand for workers in low-wage, hourly jobs. Until there’s job growth there won’t be demand for new housing."

"What’s more, experts have been warning for several years that the market is overbuilt, particularly in the student housing sector, and the amount of inventory remains high."

The South Florida Business Journal. "In the initial months of closures with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, some CMBS lenders struck short-term deals that included delayed mortgage payments. Some hotel owners could even use reserves to cover operating expenses for their properties, said Jay Sakalo, a partner at Miami-based Bilzin Sumberg who specializes in corporate finance and restructuring. Reserves are usually kept as collateral by lenders in case payments are missed, but in this scenario, owners could use those funds to cover expenses, including electricity and payroll."

"The question remains: Why would banks work with owners rather than just foreclose, as they may have done before the age of Covid? Any lender that chooses to foreclose on a hotel has the responsibility of managing the property on its own. While many would opt to then sell the hotel, values for business and convention hotels are far below pre-pandemic levels, experts say. These are also the properties most likely to still be struggling through the pandemic, so there's likely no real demand for lenders if they want to sell."

From Socket Site in California. "Having bottomed out at around $3,050 last month, the weighted average asking rent for an apartment in San Francisco has since ticked up around 2 percent to $3,125 per month but is still 24 percent lower than prior to the pandemic having hit and 30 percent below a 2015-era peak."

"There are still 45 percent more apartments listed for rent in San Francisco than there were at the same time last year and 85 percent more than there were prior to the pandemic, while the population has shrunk."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "In April, Calgary city council approved a new plan and a $200-million budget to revitalize the city’s dwindling downtown, including the conversion of six million square feet of vacant office space into residential use over the next decade. Since the economic downturn of 2014, high office-vacancy rates in Calgary have persisted, hitting 32 per cent in the first quarter of 2021, according to a report from commercial realtor CBRE."

"Although not as severe, the downtown residential market has also been in decline, a consequence of the loss of thousands of oil and gas jobs in Calgary’s core. 'Downtown sales went from a peak of just under 2,000 units in 2014, to the low last year, where there were under 300 sales,' said Matthew Boukall, vice-president of product management and data solutions at Altus Group."

"Last fall, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimated that 8.8 per cent of purpose-built rental apartments in downtown Calgary were vacant; higher than the overall city average of 6.6 per cent and the second highest level in 30 years. Yet, part of the city’s solution to the vast oversupply of office space downtown is to increase the housing supply."

"Some worry the residential conversion component of the downtown plan could affect the condo resale market. 'It’s exacerbating the issue by adding more supply, and therefore, more choice and more pressure on existing apartment prices,' said Robert Price, CEO of Bode, a Calgary-based real estate tech start-up. Another challenge for the condo market specific to Calgary is that downtown units are usually not a buyers’ first choice. Sprawl has generated an ample supply of single-family homes still within reasonable distance of the downtown core."

"Condos in the city’s centre continued to struggle. '[In the past], the housing market growth was really based on the fact that the downtown office market and employment was growing,' Mr. Boukall said. Now, the situation has changed. 'There really is no reason to be downtown if you’re not working downtown.'"